VR is still in its early stages. It is still at least a year away to see major adoption rates.

This is not my opinion, but the message that anyone who followed this year’s E3 is sure to have got.

E3 or the Electronic Entertainment Expo is the biggest gaming focused event of the year. This year the VR enthusiasts were religiously expecting some new and exciting things to be revealed there. It turned out to be rather shimmer less show for them.

E3 2017 was largely devoid of any major VR announcements which was not that surprising what came before it. Majority of the VR headsets were already announced at other or independent events and they were no specific leaks of anything substantial coming to the show either. That doesn’t mean it was deserted of VR content. Some big titles like DOOM are coming to VR and there were a number of other announcements.

VR Games

There are a number of games that are being re-imagined for VR and were showcased at the floor during the event. Let’s take a look at them.

DOOM VFR

Bethesda’s smaller yet engaging first person shooter is getting a VR facelift. For those unfamiliar with the franchise, it is a first-person shooter in which you put yourselves in to the shoes of a “doom“ed scientist and battle the various terrifying demons that you come across.

RELEASE DATE: It will be released in the year end, on Dec 29 and now it is up for pre-order on STEAM for $29.

MOSS

A third-person adventure game from PolyArc studios is coming in VR.

It was featured in Sony’s PlayStation VR demos. It will have the user in a dual role, one is to control Quill, the mouse through the imaginary world and the other as her helping hand. Making use of both traditional controller buttons and some motion tracking tech to deliver an immersive experience.

RELEASE DATE: It is coming to PlayStation VR later in 2017 and will eventually be available across platforms.

ECHO ARENA

Another of PolyArc’s creations this is a multiplayer game and is coming to VR later this year. It basically is a team game, each having five members playing it out in the open through jetpacks and fighting with glowing disks and all this while floating in zero-gravity.

RELEASE DATE: unannounced. Expected later this year.

ARKTIKA.1

If you are a fan of those post-doomsday horror themed survival games and is coming form the same staple that belted out the epic Metro series of games. The gamer is a bounty hunter who has a wide range of guns at his disposal. Using those and the various barriers to protect yourself from the onslaught of demons and zombies.

RELEASE DATE:It is coming to Oculus family of devices later this year.

Other Announcements:

Project Scorpio aka the Xbox One X.

The beastly new console king from Microsoft was announced at E3 2017. With a huge list of 42 launch titles and 22 with console exclusivity. Nothing much was shown regarding to VR. It was confirmed that the console can easily handle VR games and will be getting some love in that regard in 2018.

Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim on PSVR.

Bethesda’s VR remake of the legendary fallout franchise is coming to HTC this October for 60$. This by far the biggest VR based title this year, but is still a kind of re-mastered version as opposed to DOOM which is a new game altogether. The much loved Skyrim was absent form the show, but was later revealed at the PSVR conference. It supports DualShock gamepads from Sony and is expected to hit the market in November of 2017.

Lone Echo

Lone Echo is coming to oculus later this year was another major announcement. Some other games like Raw Data, Final Fantasy XV etc. were also shown.

Closing words…

Overall it was a rather sedate year for groundbreaking VR announcements at E3, but still a fair number of new and modified games were shown off and the promise of high fidelity VR from Xbox One X is a welcome addition. VR has a long way to go, but there is a welcome change that is happening around the community.

VR games are beginning to be treated as normal games and not a niche part of the market.